More Than Meets theEye
by JustThisOne
Summary: Backstory for Eric Beale, the techie we know so little about.  Mostly Eric with a touch of Nell. My first Fan Fic.


Eric Beale was more resilient than he appeared. By a long shot. Though Callen and Sam had made light of Nell's remark following the testing chamber fiasco, Nell knew Eric better than the rest of the team in spite of their short time together as techie partners. Although they talked frequently, more to each other than to the rest of the team, Eric had never brought up his past. Somehow, Nell just knew there was more to the casual-dressing, relaxed computer geek the whole team relied on for information and safety than met the eye.

Eric knew the team just assumed he had a childhood straight from a 1950s TV show: Perfect house in a perfect neighborhood with loving, attentive parents. A soft, pampered existence that was far from the cold youth Callen and Deeks experienced in the homes, and even farther away from Kensi's loss of her father. Though the team never noticed Eric said nothing of his childhood, apart from getting expelled once in high school, they just assumed Eric did not want to make the team feel shorted in comparison to his golden youth.

In reality, Eric did not talk about life before NCIS, before California, because he thought the team would never believe him. And because there were few happy memories to talk about anyway.

Eric was an unwanted child and he knew it. How could he not? His parents told him every time they got angry and frustrated, any time Eric needed something at an inconvenient time, or was just plain inconvenient to their lives. His parents divorced a year after he was born-it was always made clear that Dad only married Mom out of guilt from the unplanned pregnancy.

Though his parents were financially well off, his dad due to a high paying job and his mom due to a trust fund, neither parents ever seemed happy. His dad spoke to him as little as possible and saw him even less, even though the two houses were just a few miles apart. His mom drank. A lot.

While never abusive physically, Eric's mom was an emotional rollercoaster of being kindergarten giddy and downright vicious with words. There was no telling what you would find and the drinking just got worse over time, slowly at first, then rapidly when she started mixing alcohol with prescription painkillers, antidepressants, and, well, anything she could get a doctor to prescribe her. Eric took care of himself and had for as long as he could remember. He did his laundry, cleaned up, made his own meals, and made sure the bills were in the mail and his homework was done. He also made sure people never knew how bad things could get at home.

For example, Eric learned to cook when his mom came home from a three day bender and decided she was hungry. She made pasta, poured bourbon on it for flavor, and lit the pan on fire like crème brulee. The resulting fireball set the kitchen ablaze and nearly the house too. Eric was eleven and asleep upstairs when it happened. He didn't know about the fire until the next morning. Kids of alcoholics and addicts can sleep through anything and Eric, not wanting to burn alive, decided to add cooking to his list of grown up responsibilities.

Eric knew for months he would have to leave home. His mom had taken to being gone days and even weeks at a time without him knowing where she went or with whom. She didn't call, too drunk and high to notice the passage of time. Mother and son never talked beyond pleasantries- probably why it was still hard for Eric to engage his teammates in banter or conversation beyond the scope of a case. Though she did make special efforts to be sober for a few days around his birthday and Christmas. Of course, she took those couple days of being able to not drink or pop pills as a sign she did not have a problem, no matter how the bitchy neighbor looked at her when she would come home in the mornings.

Eric planned his run. He arranged for his school records to be transferred to a new high school, got his birth certificate and Social Security card from the bank's safety deposit box, and saved all his money from holidays, birthdays, and his job fixing computers and anything that could be plugged into a wall. He waited until the end of his junior year, picked a date, packed the last few of his carefully selected clothes, books, and tech gear, said goodnight to his mom as she left for God only knew how long, and walked out the door, leaving only a simple note on his desk, "I can't take this anymore. I'll be at Dad's house. Eric".

At his father's house, Eric rang the bell and waited for his father, who he had not seen in several months. When his dad came to the door, he was on the phone, on a business call- typical for the workaholic who gave more to his career than to his son. Still, Eric thought that he would get a warm welcome and be allowed to stay at the house to finish high school. It was a slap in the face when his dad, clearly pissed at the other end of the phone and at life in general looked at Eric and said, "Just because your idiot mother threw you to the curb doesn't mean you can stay here." Taking out his wallet, Mr. Beale took out the cash inside, shoving it into Eric's hand saying, "This is all she ever wants from me anyway. Just leave me alone; can't you see I'm in the middle of something?" And then, without ever giving Eric a chance to say a word, to explain that he couldn't go home, that if he did, he would kill himself, Beale senior slammed the door in his only child's face and shut the porch light off.

Standing on the cold darkened porch, Eric was numb. There was no way he would go home. Just no way he could go back to the drunken rants, manic mood swings, screaming obscenities, sloppy hugs, and neglect that all let him know without a doubt that there was no life for him under his mother liquor-soaked roof that could pass for a pharmacy. He had considered suicide, even taking some of his mom's painkillers from her stash when she was too blitzed to notice. But, for whatever reason, he decided to run instead. And now he had nowhere to run to.

He started walking with no plan in mind, just wanting to quiet the scream in his head and the searing burning in his chest. He ended up at the bus station and bought a ticket for Pittsburg for no other reason than it was the next bus out of Hartford.

When he arrived the next afternoon, he asked around for a cheap place to live and was eventually directed to a cash-only pay by the week motel, mostly occupied by single moms with no other place they could afford, people just out of jail, and prostitutes. Lying about his age to the motel manager who just wanted a fully booked motel and no police incidents, Eric took a room that would be his home for the next year. Torn carpet, a sagging double bed, leaking bathroom fixtures, a table, a chair, mini fridge, microwave, and hot plate. Never so far away from his previous life, Eric slept peacefully for the first time in years.

The motel was like a family, and though nobody believed he was nineteen, nobody asked why he was there alone and everybody simply referred to him as 'the kid'. Eric enrolled in school with the paperwork he had his mom sign when she was too high to know what she was doing, learned the bus routes, found a job working after school fixing computers and working on the weekends as a busboy to pay for the room and food, and learned what streets to avoid and what groceries sold the best discounted food. Though he hated being alone, he was better looked after in a shabby motel on skid row than he ever was at home. He was happy for the first time and had no desire to go back to Connecticut, especially after he called home after six weeks or so to tell his mom he was safe. He thought he owed her that measure of consideration. She had no idea he had been gone. Eric hung up the phone. He did not call his father. That phone call and the night on his father's front porch were the last time he had seen or spoken to his parents since he was barely seventeen. They never tried to find him.

By some miracle, Eric scored a 36 on the ACT and graduated with a 4.3 GPA despite working nearly full time. His grades allowed him to be accepted into Carnegie Mellon University and his essay, where he told the truth about his background and current living arrangement, pouring his hearty out to a piece of paper all the things he never once told a teacher, a neighbor, a friend's parent, or his de facto motel family, earned Eric a full scholarship based on financial need and aptitude. The motel residents and even the crotchety owner all celebrated his acceptance into one of the best universities in the country.

College was hard. He had nobody to fall back on except himself, though he did slowly let people in and developed strong friendships. Eric double majored in computer science and technological engineering and minored in literature, determined to get the most out of his scholarship. That, and everything Eric did for himself was a way of proving to himself that he did the right thing by leaving home and that he could make it on his own. He was tough. Not the brag in a bar that you can do anything without fear tough, but the quiet, steady internal tough that never quits. The kind of tough that knows you can take what life dishes out becuase you made your life on your own and made it well.

Though Eric made lifelong friends at college, he did not talk about his childhood much. He saw no need to dredge up the past. And in any case, so many people had it worse than him he felt no need to complain about his circumstances. The important thing was he made it out and went far, farther than most kids that grew up in a house like his.

It was this feeling that made him clam up about his background at NCIS with the team. Many of them had it worse than he ever had. Kensi's dad actually loved her and she lost him. Callen's mom was taken from him before he even had a chance to know her. He never even got a substitute family, with the exception of the Rostoff's. And Deeks wasn't even safe from his father. The few bottles Eric's mom had thrown at him would never compare to the physical pain Deeks went through. So Eric never brought up his background. Nell knew he was strong without him saying anything and without her asking anything. They were separate from the agents and knew it. Liked it. And for a guy who loved his life, his work, his NCIS family (who had no idea that they, along with personal friends _were_ his family), that was all that mattered.


End file.
